


Nelipot

by teasmudge



Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: Confessions, M/M, Obvious Truths Make Ciel Horny, Presocratic Philosophy, Pretentious Sexual Tension, Unresolved Banter, What Happens In The Study Stays In The Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:28:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25657426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/teasmudge/pseuds/teasmudge
Summary: “Why do you ask?”“What good is owning a demon if I cannot ask it for the secrets of the universe?”“Has the Young Master been reading Presocratics again?”“A little,” he confessed.
Relationships: Sebastian Michaelis/Ciel Phantomhive
Comments: 21
Kudos: 133





	Nelipot

It was one of those rare occasions when the Young Master’s afternoon tea ran well into dinnertime. When everything fell perfectly into place and the Master would oblige the Butler to sit with him for tea. Or the Butler would persuade the Master, neither of them could really tell who’s tally was who’s anymore.

“Sebastian, what is the arche of all things?”

“Why do you ask?”

“What good is owning a demon if I cannot ask it for the secrets of the universe?”

“Has the Young Master been reading Presocratics again?”

“A little,” he confessed.

Sebastian’s eyes lit impossibly bright, “Very well. Let us try and figure it out?”

_It is true, what they say about those who like to read. And how positively charming their inquiries often are._

“Are you trying to play Socrates with me?”

“No,” chuckled Sebastian. “You are much lovelier than Meno.”

Ciel sputtered on the lip of his teacup, was Sebastian trying to flirt with him?  
Not quite, “But no less dignified, it seems.”

Ciel found this to be as offensive as Sebastian’s wide, toothy smile. “Honestly,” he scoffed. “How incorrigible can a demon be?”

“Would you like to know?” but the intensity of his voice did not seem to match the smile he kept. It sent a familiar shudder down the length of Ciel’s spine. He snapped his gaze away from Sebastian and blushed at the shelf of books lining the wall, tongue to cheek.

Hadn’t they run the same circle long enough? Because Ciel really would like to know, wouldn’t he? He’d like to know everything about Sebastian, actually. The Sebastian who wasn’t even Sebastian. And he’d never admit it, would he? Not ever. Not knowingly. Instead, he resigned himself. Played along, pretended like he did not think about all of the things they should most definitely not talk about. It was the same game every time, where they took turns answering the other’s questions with more questions. 

Ciel huffed, “I’d like to know the arche of all things.”

Ah, “Would you?” Sebastian leaned closer, chin to hand.

They sat on chairs separated by a small table, facing one another at an angle opposite the Phantomhive study’s fireplace. Which never happened, hardly ever, because Sebastian valued aesthetics above all else, and it would be much too ill-mannered for a servant to sit in the presence of his Young Master. And Ciel was too proud. So it felt special. Different from one of Professor Michaelis’ tutoring sessions, more private, less chaste. And it reminded Ciel of the night the contract was made, except it wasn’t, because they were in the Phantomhive manor, and _he_ was safe, and that was years ago, and the portrait of Ciel’s father still hung proudly above the mantle on the fireplace.

“Yes,” said Ciel. Persistent. From this distance, Ciel could chase the patterns in the pool of Sebastian’s flaring eyes, “I would.”

“I take it Thales’ explanation was not convincing enough for you, Young Master?” 

Sebastian already knew it wasn’t, this was just their idea of small talk. “It lacks,” said Ciel. “It is comforting, though, to think that all things are really just one thing. To think as the Greeks did, that the entirety of the universe is made up of one thing.”

Sebastian hummed. 

“Out of which things are composed,

“Out of which things come to be,

“Into which things perish.”

Whenever Sebastian looked at Ciel it felt as though he was looking through his eyes and into the back of his skull, “Thales believed all of it to be water. According to him, the earth is a disc that rests on water.”

Ciel snorted at the absurdity of it, “Unlike his successor who thought that the earth rests on air,” he wiggled his fingers in gesture. “Like a leaf flowing through the breeze.”

“Ah-ah,” said Sebastian, voice thick with how much he adored playing devil’s advocate, “Thales would disagree. He’d say that the earth does not rest on air by nature, but does so on water, like wood floats down a stream.”

“Then what accounts for the water supporting the earth?”

“What a clever boy the Young Master has become.” Just as darling as the day the demon met him.

“What might Thales say to that?” Ciel had this lilt about him, seemingly polite, but Sebastian knew better. It was the infuriating shape of his mouth and how it clung around the words he made. Irresistible, even to Sebastian. Especially to Sebastian.

“For the Greeks, the idea of being eternal is associated with divinity. So, the idea of water being the arche of all things suggests that water is divine, does it not? Thales would tell you that it is divinity that holds the earth still.”

Sebastian watched Ciel consider the thought. Narrowed brows, thinking eyes, slacked lips.

“Does it?” he eventually asked.

Sebastian uncrossed his legs and crossed them onto his opposite leg. A habit of Sebatian’s that Ciel had come to note. Slow, deliberate, indulgent, “All things are full of gods.”

It was a trick question, but all Ciel really wanted to ask was, _Even you?_

“You would insult me with y-your... Your sensual politics? Do you think me that naive to poetic kerfuffle?”

The demon smiled a terrible semblance of innocence at him, “Whatever do you mean?”

As if, “You assume I know nothing.”

“Is that so,” wondered Sebastian, _or do you still not realize how thoroughly I enjoy playing with you?_ “What might Ciel Phantomhive have to say to such poetic kerfuffle?”

The bed of coal from within the fireplace crackled loudly. Its waning flicker distorted the portrait of Vincent Phantomhive’s face in the firelight, and it was when Ciel, who wasn’t really Ciel, came to realize that his tea had long gone cold, and day had turned to night, encompassing the study with its darkness.

Ciel Phantomhive had nothing to do with this. Ciel Phantomhive was dead.

Sebastian made a face that told him what he already knew, Play with fire and you’ll surely get burnt. But this was the price to pay, was it not? Cruelty. Ciel had made a deal with a devil. He had long ago learned to lick the sugar of Sebastian’s broken promises off of knives.

Ciel went on, seemingly unaffected, but they both knew better than that, “‘All things are full of gods’ was a comment attributed to Thales by Aristotle.” 

Sebastian was pleased with this, “Ah?”

“And in some ways, it seems unlike Thales to say. After all, his philosophy is itself an attempt to find that which underlies everything,” Ciel shucked off his shoes and carelessly plodded them to the floor. “To give a unified, simplified, rational account of nature. And he is considered the birth of this sort of thought,” he explained, tucking his socked feet into the chair. Abandoning propriety. Cosying himself, “As someone who attempted to explain nature outside of reference to the gods, could it be that Thales believed that all things are full of the human perception of gods?” 

_Even you?_

Sebastian narrowed his eyes at the way Ciel’s garters, the ones he had buckled that very morning, stretched over the skin of his calf. He felt affronted in the most delicious way. 

The demon’s voice silenced the sounds of the fire, no more playing around. Gravely still, as though he were speaking from the inside of Ciel’s head. It stole the breath from Ciel’s lungs, how it slithered, “Thales, Aristotle, Socrates. You could care less about something as inevitable as the arche of all things, my pretentious boy. You want to impress me because you wish,” the surrounding sound of laughter, “most deeply, to conquer me.”

It was troublesome. Not because it wasn’t true, Sebastian did not tell lies, but because Sebastian had never acknowledged _that_ before, and now that he had, Ciel found himself appreciating the comforts of their silly little game. He felt seen, unbearably so. Sebastian was undoubtedly fearsome, the set of his shoulders, the way his hands rested insipidly over his knees. Ciel contained himself as best as he could, “Really. So why don’t you just eat me now?”

_Because I adore watching you try._

Sebastian’s eyes said it all. Oh, Ciel concluded. “I haven’t marinated enough for you yet.” Not a question, just another obvious truth. 

“I intend to savour you,” divulged Sebastian.

Ciel found this discovery fascinating, the same one that had been festering a wound into his heart since that one December, many years ago. “Is that why you pay so much attention to me?” Ciel asked honestly. “Because you found me when I was young enough for you to take your time with?”

The demon nodded simply. Like it was the easiest, most apparent thing in the world, the universe, “You are supple, but not quite ripe.”

Ciel felt sick with the idea of being ripened. As far as he was concerned, Sebastian was the arche of all things. 

Out of which things are composed,

Out of which things come to be,

Into which things perish.

Sebastian was all of it. Life. Revenge. Death. In that order.

“Do you think yourself a god?” Ciel gaped, not coy in the slightest, just curious. 

“Why,” like it didn’t matter either way, “were you hoping to be my greatest creation?”

Ciel shook his head. He wanted to laugh. He needed to cry. He wanted to die. He needed to live. For a single, overwhelming moment, none of it mattered. Ciel Phantomhive. Ciel Phantomhive’s father. Ciel Phantomhive’s legacy. The brand on his ribcage. The Queen. England. What mattered was the way Sebastian looked at him, and how he didn’t think he could bear it, the weight of all that red, sinister intent.

He knew, instinctually, that he feared Sebastian. His Sebastian. But he didn’t understand Sebastian, so how could he ever hope to describe the indescribable? Even more indescribable was the all-consuming urge to seek that fear. To face Sebastian head-on and pursue that which made him most frightening. Ciel’s father had once told him something about facing fears. But when he looked into Sebastian’s eyes, when he really looked, all he saw was a reflection of himself surrounded by fire. There was something lonesome about that vacant stare. Something tragic. Like a mirror that affixed misery into whoever stared back. 

He knew, instinctually, that there would never be any room for empathy in Sebastian’s eyes. But he was human, and he was imprisoned by the human perspective, and perhaps all things are full of gods because he simply could not help the feeling of hope that lodged its way into the pit of his throat. 

“You don’t fool me one bit,” Sebastian told him. Because Sebastian knew, instinctually, what Ciel was thinking.

And neither of them would ever say it. And hope always came with a noose tied around it.

“No,” Ciel responded, caught out of his reverie. “I wasn’t trying to. But I bet I could though.”

“Oh,” Sebastian’s tongue rolled across his smile. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” was all Ciel said.

“Go on then, little one.” It didn’t sound human, but Ciel somehow understood it anyway, “Fool me.”

Ciel’s eyes went mischievous in an instant. Potently curious, like he knew he meant something special. Like he had something to prove, and he did, Sebastian supposed. It wasn’t fond, the look they shared, but it felt as intrusive as though it were. And curiosity could be the most maddening sort of eager, couldn’t it? And oh, how Sebastian enjoyed watching him blink like that.

Ciel uncurled from the chair and brought himself up onto his knees. The chair wasn’t very large, but it was large enough for him to twist himself around and positively drape his chest against the back of it. His shorts were so very small on him, they were Sebastian’s favourite pair. He kept bending, arching into the curve of the chair until his thighs squished out the pudgy outline of his ballsack. Gladly, because he knew how much Sebastian liked it. 

Sebastian followed his movements very closely as he slipped one of his arms through his thighs, showing Sebastian a tease of fingers, pressing into warm, nylon skin. His feet dangled off the seat of the chair to support the weight of his knees. He amorously played with his feet, ankle to ankle, a young boy again, completely disheveling his socks. They bunched loosely from his toes, as though begging Sebastian to pluck them off of Ciel’s legs with his teeth.

Ciel looked over his shoulder, “Sebastian,” he called. There was something so tantalizing about the way he said it, the name he’d given his demon. 

Bemused, “Yes, Young Master?”

And they were back to their game. Their charade of charades, “Just how incorrigible can a demon be?”

**Author's Note:**

> (˵ ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°˵)


End file.
